Reality Bites (and leaves a scar)

I realize I haven't written for months, and the truth is, I wasn't sure how much of the rest of my life should be in a blog about breast cancer.  But I read back a bit and realized that when I've felt my worst, this blog made me feel better.  (Some of the credit goes to the therapist, but she can't be there exactly when I need to talk, like at 12:51 in the morning on a Wednesday in late April.)

Over the summer, Rod and I (and Ari and his girlfriend Liz) traveled to Eastern Europe (Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary) with a congregational trip to visit  many places I had only learned about in religious school.  It was almost unbearable at some moments, standing where Jews were shot in Auschwitz, seeing graves upon graves upon graves of men, women and children who were guilty of nothing but being the "wrong" kind of people.  There were moments of beauty in Prague, and Krakow, and the fact that these experiences were shared with people we knew and felt were like family made them possible, for me, anyway.  It was the European heat wave and we hurried from shade to shade to water stop to bathroom.  But I wouldn't have missed it.  And I don't think I need to do it again.

I've been to the oncologist (bloodwork good=happy oncologist=good visit) and I had another surgery on November 18.  (If you had read the posts surrounding the surgery when the implants were switched out, you knew this was coming.  It came. It went. I lived.)  The first-look results were pretty awesome.  But as usual, the wait of at least six months to see if the transplanted fat "survives" have been strewn with intense mirror-gazing and alas, I see a dent or two these days, which is not a good sign.

Before the surgery I went to the URJ Biennial in Orlando, which was pretty awesome.  Left on my own for a lot of the time, I had a chance to introduce myself to people I was previously too in awe of to actually speak to.  I learned a lot!  And I had a little free time to play a game I'm currently still involved in, called Ingress.  It requires me to leave the house and walk; to visit new places.  Since I started playing I've found at least four new parks within 15 minutes of my house.  It's kind of like geocaching in that it uses your phone's GPS, but without actual physical "things" to find.

At any rate, a few weeks after my return from Orlando, I learned that my friend (who has been the hero of many of my misadventures in breast cancer) and her husband  (who has been instrumental in the building of my "hobby" into a beloved career,) along with their two sons, would be leaving our neighborhood, for him to take a position in Manhattan.

I do not recall being so devastated since my diagnosis.  It seems ridiculous to compare a friend relocating to a train ride away to a potentially fatal illness, right?

Let me restate that.  It must seem ridiculous to everyone.  And if I could take a step back, I might see it that way, too.  Perhaps my world is smaller than everyone else's, which makes this feel just so overwhelming, even after four months of trying to absorb/deny/understand/accept the facts.  Perhaps I haven't taken enough credit for my own growth. Perhaps I was content with the happiness of having a "best" friend - a relationship I did not experience until my adulthood - and did not consider the importance of that in my life.  (There is no "perhaps" about that last one.  I'm pretty sure there was no way in hell I had considered the importance.  Otherwise, wouldn't I be more balanced about the whole thing?)

I feel ... wounded.  Mournful.  And some other words that are less sad and more angry.  I know they are a complete overreaction to the circumstances.  People should get to have jobs where their passion takes them.  Friends can't always be just around the corner.  But knowing and feeling do not always play together nicely.  Some days they're just plain 'ole crappy to each other.

Odd fact: It's funny (not funny haha, funny weird) that when I hurt emotionally, parts of my body that no longer exist hurt, too.  The fact that they were located near my heart is not ironic; it feels appropriate, somehow.

Dr. D'Amico, when last seen, was hot on the trail of tattoos again.  But he agreed to wait until the scars healed.  These new ones are going to take a while longer.